Well, the truth is, of course, that launching an innovation management program successfully is not as simple as simple as pushing some buttons and putting some inspirational creativity posters up around the office. There are challenges to be faced and skill sets to be developed.

IdeaScale recently surveyed their customers and prospects and asked them what the biggest impediments were to the success of their innovation management programs and here are their answers (in descending of order of importance):

Lack of Time. If no one is in charge of innovation, it’s often an up-hill battle to marshal the resources necessary to gather ideas, inspire creativity, select ideas and steward them through to completion. Sometimes, people are championing a program like this on top of their daily tasks. With a crowdsourced innovation program, some of this work can be deputized, but even then someone needs to be providing strategy and governance to a successful program.

Lack of Budget. Even if someone starts a formal innovation management program through sheer force of will, it won’t get very far without funding. Some ideas will require money, change doesn’t happen without resources. Good formal innovation management programs should allocate resources for the implementation of new ideas.

No Innovation Culture or Formal Innovation Processes. The success of formal innovation management means truly embracing a culture of innovation. This means allowing ideas to fail and celebrating opportunities to learn as much as success. It also means defining processes for routing ideas to people who can implement them and constantly looking for new input.

Lack of Senior-Level Buy-In. This is one of the reasons that culture often fails. This value set often has to come from the top-down.